On Tue, 15 Oct 2013 06:20:44 +0200, nestork
wrote:


When threads go totally off track like this one has, it's fertile ground
for an argument to pop into existance, like energy in a vaccuum.

I think you really can't compare the buying power of an hour's worth of
wages today to that of 50 years ago because so many things have changed
in 50 years.

I suppose there's some truth to that but if you want to compare you
need some basis of comparison. Dollars or hours are about all I can
think of. I sort of like hours better because it makes it somewhat
closer to a work = get stuff equation. If the average weekly income
in 1940 (for 60 hours of work) was $50 it would still make a big
difference if that $50 was earned with 40 hours of work or with 60
hours of work. So if you looked at 1940 versus 2000 and said the
average weekly income in 1940 was $50 and in 2000 its $500 it looks
like people make 10 times as much for a weeks worth of work. But if
you covert it to dollars per hour labor equivalent than 1940 is
$0.83/hr and 2000 is $12.50/hr and the ratio is not 10:1 it's 30:1.
It's not nearly as important as "what is cost in dollars" but "what it
cost in your labor/time". Another way to look at this is the old joke
about how if Bill Gate's drops a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk
when getting out of a taxi it's not worth his time to stop and pick it
up, his time is too valuable. Now for a single instance that's
obviously silly, but what if the comparison was - should Bill Gates
spend all day picking up $10,000 dollars in $100 bills that fell out
of his suitcase or should he let it go and proceed to his meeting in
the penthouse to seal some deal. Clearly for Bill he should just hope
on the Elevator. If that happened to me... I'd be on my hands and
knees scooping up the money, my "important meeting" of the dust bunny
club could wait.